The present invention relates to a system for setting the span load distribution of a wing, in particular high-lift systems on the wings of large commercial aircraft.
Almost without exception, in already-known systems (Rudolph P. K. C., High-Lift Systems on Commercial Subsonic Airliners, NASA CR 4746) the trailing edge of wings of large commercial aircraft has landing flap elements that are divided in the direction of the span. The reasons for this are the geometry of the wing, the dimensions of the components, and the control of the flap elements by the system. In a conventional design of the high-lift system, the landing flap elements are coupled to each other, i.e. they are extended at the same angle. In this way, the actuators for all flap elements can be driven by a central drive system. The aerodynamic design of the high-lift wing is governed by the side constraint of synchronous extension of all flap elements.
Such a high-lift system is believed to not make it possible to adapt in any way the span load distribution to increase the start lift/drag ratio and the maximum lift.
Another already-known high-lift system (Dargel G., et al, “Entwicklung eines Flügels mit multifunktionalen Steuerflächen” [Development of a wing with multifunctional control surfaces] in ProHMS, DGLR annual conference 2002), which system attempts to overcome the above-mentioned disadvantages, requires a very considerable system effort because the base flap system is operated without any changes and an additional secondary system is installed on the trailing edge of the base flap system.